No Camera for me at Photokina 2008

Even with the flurry of new bodies shown at Photokina I don’t find the camera that I really want. We’ve reached a point where every dSLR from every manufacturer is good enough, so in many ways you cannot make a bad choise, but still, the ideal camera for me has not been made yet.

Luckily I don’t need a new body at this time, so I can analyze the the Canon 5D Mark II without much emotion.

Attractive to me:

very high image quality

great high-ISO performance

no crop factor

I already have lenses for it

takes CF cards

larger and brighter viewfinder than my Canon 30D

Not attractive to me:

too many pixels

lacks in-body image stabilization

no improvement of the auto-focus

body too large and heavy

viewfinder still not as large and bright as in a mid-class film body

Maybe Pentax will have the answer to my needs — if and when they release a body with the 24 MP Sony chip. Although once again, that’s too many pixels.

With so many megapixels I’ll need more memory cards, a larger hard disk and much more backup space. It will take longer to transfer the images onto my computer, to generate thumbnails, open the files, save the files, make backups, etc. In fact I’ll probably need a new computer, and since Adobe does not add new cameras to old Photoshop versions, I’ll need a Photoshop upgrade too. No, no, I don’t need a new camera at this time!

Before you tell me that more megapixels means larger prints, consider this. After learning to sharpen images properly, I can produce excellent 30×45 cm (12×16″) prints out of 6 megapixels. That’s generally the image size from my Canon 30D after cropping a bit and getting to a 3:4 aspect ratio. I could probably even do a 40×50 print onto DIN A2+ paper (17×22″) if you don’t look at it under a loupe. That’s the largest paper size that my printer will print — so no sir, I don’t need no 24 stinkin’ megapixels.

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4 thoughts on “No Camera for me at Photokina 2008”

I’m curious why you would feel the Canon 5D is “too large and heavy”? I shoot the 5D and 40D with battery grip and both are about 2/3 the size of my ’76 Canon F-1 and less than half the weight. Even the 1Ds weigh considerably less than the old film cameras.

well, I also feel that my Canon 30D is too large and heavy. I guess at heart I’m still a Pentax guy, wanting a no-bells-and-whistles body in a small package. Something like an MZ-3 or K200D.

I got the “large and heavy” 30D over the 400D because I wanted the larger viewfinder and the more flexible AF system, but if I see no advantage in more weight and a larger package. But that’s just me and my personal taste.